Barton gripped his dagger with both hands, watching as Kabuto emerged from the smoke and immediately rushed towards him.
He burst forth with his fastest speed, appearing in front of Kabuto in the blink of an eye, like a gust of wind.
Running up to Kabuto, Barton swung his dagger directly at him.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
Barton exerted all his strength with each swing of his dagger, each strike carrying the force of eight tons.
Kabuto, holding his shuriken made of Adamantium alloy, parried each of Barton's moves.
Barton's stunning speed in the eyes of others was nothing extraordinary to Kabuto.
However, each collision between the shuriken and the dagger produced a shower of sparks, making the battle between the two appear intense to the SHIELD agents watching.
After exchanging blows for over thirty moves, the room was filled with the sounds of their weapons clashing.
Kabuto felt that he had already demonstrated his strength enough. Although he hadn't used any ninjutsu, only relying on taijutsu techniques, it seemed that he could reveal a bit more of his skills.
Suddenly, Kabuto accelerated, and the short sword formed by his shuriken struck directly against Barton's dagger. The immense force pressed Barton into a half-crouched position, causing the wooden floor beneath his feet to explode.
With his hands still holding the dagger, Barton shouted angrily, "Get up!"
He then exerted force with both arms, swinging upward. Taking advantage of the rebound, Kabuto executed a backflip, creating distance between them.
"Wind Release: Air Slash!"
During the backflip, Kabuto formed hand seals in mid-air and, upon landing, exhaled a trumpet-shaped burst of air towards Barton.
The sudden burst of air sent Barton flying and left him with wounds from the wind blades.
Unable to control his body in mid-air, Barton, with all his brute strength but no means to use it, was once again sent flying by the Air Slash.
Meanwhile, Kabuto, after using Air Slash, charged towards Barton with his shuriken in hand.
As Barton landed on the ground, Kabuto appeared in front of him, the shuriken pressed against Barton's neck.
"You've lost!" Kabuto declared.
Hearing this, Barton felt somewhat resigned but still admitted, "I've lost!"
"Your test is over!"
At this moment, the doors of the warehouse opened, and several medical personnel, along with those who had conducted Kabuto's power test, rushed over.
Medical personnel immediately ran up to Barton, but his injuries were already slowly healing, albeit not rapidly, but visibly so.
Observing this scene, Kabuto glanced at Barton's wounds and thought to himself, "His strength may not be impressive, but his self-healing ability is quite good."
Barton looked at the medical personnel approaching him and said, "My injuries aren't severe; I just need to rest for a bit."
"Agent Barton, that's not for you to decide," one of the medical personnel responded.
"We need to conduct a comprehensive examination on you and ensure that you're fully recovered."
Then a doctor in a white coat looked at Kabuto and asked, "You were also hit by the explosion earlier. Are you injured?"
Kabuto, appearing undamaged except for some dust on his body and no torn clothes, replied, "I'm not injured."
Seeing that Kabuto claimed to be uninjured, the doctor didn't say much and immediately placed Barton on a stretcher, carrying him away.
Observing this, Kabuto refrained from intervening. He had no intention of revealing his medical ninjutsu skills to treat Barton. While it was normal for a wandering ninja to have a basic elemental ninjutsu, possessing advanced medical ninjutsu would raise questions.
Kabuto looked at the agent who had brought him in for testing and asked, "Is the power test over?"
The agent nodded. "Basically, yes. But you still need to undergo some basic tests with me—strength, speed, explosiveness, and so on. However, these are simple tests that don't require sparring; they can be done on machines."
"Follow me!"
With that, they left the testing warehouse, and Kabuto followed the agent out.
In the monitoring room, Nick Fury spoke up, "The sparring session is over. Tell me your thoughts—both on this wandering ninja, Kabuto, and on Barton."
Upon hearing the director's instructions, both agents pondered for a moment before Sitwell spoke first:
"First, let me talk about this ninja, Kabuto. According to the intelligence we've gathered, the strength displayed by this wandering ninja isn't formidable. Compared to the ninja battles we've seen in the airport videos—like Charles Doyle defeating Abomination, or Tsunade driving away the Hulk, or the battles between Sound Ninjas and Rogue Ninja Hidan—this Kabuto's performance is mediocre at best, and there's nothing particularly impressive about it."
"However, the ninjutsu he used at the end should be a wind-based ninjutsu."
"Besides that ability, there isn't much that stood out to me."
"Of course, this is only in comparison to the powerful ninjas we know of. For our agents, such strength is still a formidable presence."
"Regardless of speed, strength, or resilience to attacks, it surpasses that of our agents by a significant margin, even surpassing the enhanced Barton."
"However, that's about it. We should have many methods to deal with a ninja of this level."
"The only thing we don't know is what rank such a powerful ninja holds among other ninjas."
"After all, we know that ninjas are divided into Genin, Chunin, special Jonin, elite jonin, and Kage level."
"As for Barton, I believe this sparring session was not fair to him. The battlefield limited his performance. Otherwise, with Barton's strength and the equipment he was provided, he would have shown much more power."
Hearing Sitwell's analysis, Nick Fury also agreed to a certain extent. Compared to the previous battles with ninjas and their displayed strengths, Kabuto's strength was indeed lacking.
But if every wandering ninja had the strength of a S-rank rogue ninja, what hope did Earth have in such a terrifying ninja world?
Kabuto's displayed strength reassured Nick Fury somewhat.
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